Africa's deadliest war enters new phase in Congo

Aug. 21, 2013
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An M23 rebel is on the front lines overlooking Goma. Much of the fighting is in eastern Congo, where forces on both sides are accused by the United Nations of raping tens of thousands of women, men, girls and boys as a weapon of war. / Neil Brandvold

by Jonathan Saruk, Special for USA TODAY

by Jonathan Saruk, Special for USA TODAY

RUTSHURU, Democratic Republic of the Congo - In a small garden behind a bamboo hut, rebels with the March 23 Movement fighting government authority in eastern Congo stand around a heap of freshly dug earth.

"The dogs will eat them later. They won't even be here tomorrow," says M23 Capt. John Lukamata of three children whom his soldiers say were killed by a government helicopter attack and buried under the mound.

"I tell you, these people are animals," Lukamata says in the nearly abandoned village, the smell of burned flesh wafting through the air.

The deadliest war in modern African history is entering a new phase. For two decades, at least 20 armed groups have been fighting in this stunning landscape of jungle, volcanoes and rolling farms producing coffee, sugar cane and maize in a massive country about the size of the Eastern USA. Millions of people have died, most from starvation and disease brought on by relentless combat that has stymied intervention by the United Nations and forced millions of people to plod from village to village in search of safety.

In a first-of-its kind arrangement, the U.N. Security Council authorized an offensive military force to join Congolese government soldiers in operations against the rebels. The 3,000-troop intervention brigade will be in addition to the peacekeeping force of 17,000 U.N. soldiers - the largest U.N. peacekeeping mission in the world. The U.N. mission, which has been trying to stabilize the Congo since 1999, is funded with an annual budget of $1.35 billion.

Much of the fighting is in eastern Congo, where forces on both sides are accused by the United Nations of raping tens of thousands of women, men, girls and boys as a weapon of war.

Rebels in far-flung regions of a country that is home to more than 200 different ethnic groups say they want a measure of freedom from the dictates of the central government. They say the government is corrupt and refuses them a fair share of the country's significant deposits of gold, platinum and coltan, a mineral critical to computer processors.

The Congolese government led by President Joseph Kabila, who rose to the presidency after the assassination of his father, dismisses the rebels' claims.

"The Congolese government will not accept any solution that breaks the Congolese constitution," says Lambert Mende, Congolese minister of communication and a government spokesman. "To allow a group that has not been elected by anybody, that does not have any mandate, only because they have guns, will sound like an encouragement to all criminals, not only in the Congo, but in the whole great lakes region to dictate their will to our countries. This can not be allowed."

Jeffery Herbst, president of Colgate University who has published several books on the region, says the basic problem in Congo is a lack of a strong, accepted authority over its people.

"All kinds of people have rushed in to enrich themselves and protect their interests and to make sure that no one else has an advantage," he says.

Recent fighting between M23 and the government has happened in and around Goma, a regional capital nearly 1,000 miles from Kinshasa that is the gateway to Virunga National Park, home to bands of rare mountain gorillas. The rebel group, named for a failed March 23, 2009, peace accord, took the city of 1 million in November. Bowing to international pressure, M23 pulled back in December to just outside the city.

Fighting has continued. On Aug. 8, city dwellers marched in protest to demand the government do something to end the conflict.

In its first action, the U.N. intervention force set up an exclusion zone Aug. 1 around Goma to neutralize and disarm the rebels.

"That brigade will not solve Congo's problems," Gen. Sultani Makenga, the military commander of M23, says in Rutshuru, North Kivu.

"These are Congo's problems that should be solved by the Congolese people," Makenga says. "The government of Congo has the keys to solving the issues if it is willing."

Many observers of the conflict agree that the instability in the eastern Congo is rooted in legitimate complaints over incompetent governance, dictatorial polices and corruption - things military intervention alone will not solve. They say the government must address these issues to bring about peace.

"The use of force needs to be connected to a larger diplomatic strategy," says John Prendergast, co-founder of the Enough Project, who has worked in the region for decades. "The brigade itself is small, not remotely able to deal with scope and scale of the armed groups in Congo. ... It is going to be at its best, a tool that helps implement a larger political strategy that addresses the core concerns of the combatants."

M23 says it is fighting for a just peace, but some of its actions are far from just, according to a July 22 report by Human Rights Watch. The report accused the group of war crimes such as the summary execution of dozens of people in North Kivu and the rape of 66 women and girls.

Col. Innocent Kayina, commander of operations for M23, who was named in the report, denies the allegations as propaganda from the Kabila government.

"How could we rape and kill these civilians if we live amongst them?" he says.

Government troops and its alleged allied militias made up mostly of ethnic Hutus, such as Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, are also accused of similar heinous acts against civilians, according to the report.

The violence is a never-ending horror for the people in eastern Congo, who have had their lives ruled by warfare since the Rwandan genocide in 1994. As many as 1 million ethnic Tutsis were killed by rival Hutus in that genocide just over the border.

The fight spilled into Congo when the defeated Rwandan Hutus fled for Hutu enclaves in Congo and Rwanda's military chased them. Rwanda still wields influence in eastern Congo, says Mende, the Congolese government spokesman.

The ethnic rivalries continue to be a factor in the war. M23 is made up of mostly Tutsis, and the Congolese government has many Hutus sympathetic to the interests of their brethren.

The United States has backed the increase in the U.N. intervention brigade. In June, the State Department named former senator Russ Feingold as a special envoy to the region. Experts say more must be done.

"I think we have just gone on the assumption -- and this has been from numerous U.S. administrations -- that somehow this country is ruled from Kinshasa," Herbst says. "There are all kinds of localized, regional power centers. ... We should deal with them and urge the Congolese to think about alternative systems. Just saying that would be a massive change."

Back in the village attacked by government helicopters, Nyamvura Clementine lingers outside her home, which was destroyed by rocket fire.

"We were very scared for our lives, and I am still afraid," she says of the attack, her face covered in dust from picking through the rubble. "I do not know where to go."

Looking down the main street of her village, a dirt road now marked with 4-foot-wide craters and devastated buildings, she adds, "Only God knows if there will ever be peace in this area."